CANTERBURY, England — “Candlelight concerts” are taking place every week this fall in many of Britain’s ancient, historic and once-Catholic cathedrals, but these are not lofty performances of sacred or even classical music.
In Worcester Cathedral, founded in 680, rebuilt by St. Wulfstan, and the burial place of King John who issued the Magna Carta, the late pop singer Whitney Houston’s greatest hits will be performed. On other nights, the once-hallowed nave will be the setting for cover bands playing songs by the Eagles, Coldplay and Tina Turner.
Selby Abbey in Yorkshire, which survived Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries and is famous for featuring the 14th-century “Washington Window,” which inspired the U.S. flag, will become the venue for the Beatles and Queen tribute bands in October.
A Luther Vandross impersonator is performing in various cathedrals including the nave of St. Albans Cathedral, the oldest site of continuous Christian worship in Britain that stands on the burial place of Britain’s first martyr, St. Alban.
Meanwhile, Wells Cathedral, founded in 1175 as the first entirely Gothic-style cathedral in Britain, will be the venue for an imitation David Bowie concert on Nov. 21.
Every medieval cathedral in England appears to be hosting these concerts, except for two: Westminster Abbey and Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford. The events, aimed principally at generating much-needed funds, are commercially operated by a Spanish company called “Fever” that introduced them in early 2021 with classical music. The concerts then expanded, becoming pop and rock cover bands a year later. The Register reached out to the company for comment, but it had not responded by press time.
Arguably more controversial than the candlelight concerts are “silent discos,” organized by another company, London-based MEGA Events, and which have been taking place in some of England’s most historic cathedrals for the past couple of years. One of the most recent was in Canterbury, for centuries England’s mother Church and where St. Thomas Becket was martyred, held on the Solemnity of the Assumption. The entertainment involves partygoers wearing headphones and waving strobe lights as they dance to pop music from the 1980s and ’90s over the tombs of deceased noble citizens.
Canterbury Cathedral’s most recent disco featured multiple bars and stalls in the nave’s side aisles selling alcohol and merchandise. The dean’s office stressed this all took place away from the site of St. Thomas Becket’s martyrdom in 1170. The historic cathedrals of St. Albans, Truro, Durham and Salisbury are also among those hosting these discos — coined “raves in the nave” by their critics. MEGA Events has been contacted for comment.
Online reaction to the recent Canterbury disco — its second since 2024 — was overwhelmingly negative, including from Anglicans.
“I abhor this,” said Adrian Hilton, an Anglican commentator, responding to the Canterbury disco on X. “It is the desecration of a sacred space.” Tim Dieppe, head of public policy for Christian Concern, an evangelical Christian advocacy group, commented that the Church of England “no longer believes in the attracting power of the gospel, and resorts to secular music instead.”
Fading Opposition
In 2024, a petition against the first silent discos drew more than 3,000 signatures, and a prayer vigil was held outside Canterbury Cathedral. But the opposition has since faded, and the discos have now become “regular fixtures,” lamented Cajetan Skowronski, who organized those protests.
“Now we are invited to make St. Paul’s Cathedral a nightclub and dance on the tombs of national heroes like Nelson, Wellington, Wren and Fleming,” he observed, referring to the announcement Sept. 1 that St. Paul’s, the mother church of London’s Anglican diocese, had signed a four-year deal with a London nightclub owner to stage music events.
The 18th-century English Baroque Anglican cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, has been the setting for many events of national historical importance. Lord Horatio Nelson’s descendants have called the development an insult to his memory and a “sad reflection on where spiritual integrity and Christianity are today.”
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If they can’t afford these buildings they ripped off from the Catholics 500 years ago why don’t they just give them back.
Which is worse? Disco in the Cathedral or selling the buildings to the Muslims?
Almost as if the world is daring God--the more shocking the better; far as we seem concerned, the sacred no longer is of value or worth protecting, much less promoting.